BBQ Pork Sandwiches

On a hot day there is nothing like a dinner you can put on the table in just minutes. If you have some leftover cooked pork (leftover pork roast is perfect) this one is on the table in about 20 minutes.

The first step is to mix up the BBQ sauce. This one takes the short cut of your favorite bottled sauce then it gets a few additions (only 2 actually) and it becomes something that is just amazing. One of the ingredients might surprise you but this sauce has quickly become my favorite. I have made this with several different flavors and brands of bottled sauce and they all turn out great. Don't worry you won't actually taste the cola it just lightens up the bottled sauce and makes it taste a lot fresher.

While the sauce is simmering you can cut up that cooked pork. After that all you need to do is let the sauce and the pork get to know each other and you have a wonderful dinner. I serve this on purchased hamburger buns but I think it would also be really good over a bed of rice.

BBQ Pork Sandwiches

½ cup bottled BBQ sauce

½ cola (regular with sugar not the diet stuff)

1 Tablespoon dry minced onion

1 ½ diced cooked pork

2 split hamburger buns

Combine the BBQ sauce, cola and dry onion in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer about 10 to 15 minutes. This allows the flavors to mellow and the onion to soften.

Add the cut up pork and simmer for another 5 minutes or until hot.

Serve on buns.

Oatmeal M&M Cookies

One of my favorite things to bake is cookies but, most of my favorite recipes make 3 or 4 or more dozen cookies. Not really practical if only one or two people are trying to eat them. You either are soo bored of the cookies by the time you finish the batch or they become so stale you end up tossing them. Or you gorge on them and eat way too many the day you made them. In any case making 36 or so cookies just doesn't work for the small household.

That is the very reason I started tracking down some basic small batch cookie recipes which I have been playing with to replicate the cookies I already love to bake. My main rule is that the recipe can make no more than 12 cookies. The first cookie recipe I have for you is my Oatmeal M&M Cookies. We love this recipe and I think it turns out better than my original one that made a huge batch. This recipe makes between 9 and 11 cookies for me, depending on how big I make them.

On the subject of how big to make them, I started using a cookie scoop years ago and I always portion my cookie dough this way. Basically a cookie scoop is a small ice cream scoop. My favorite one holds just about a Tablespoon if you fill it level with the edge. For most cookies I scoop a bit more than what fits in the scoop, kind of like I do when I scoop ice cream with my larger scoop. If you don't already have one of these scoops I do recommend going out to find one.

The other thing I find especially useful in baking on a small scale is a set of measuring spoons that includes an 1/8 teaspoon. I really find this to be a necessary tool in my small scale baking.

So let's get to this recipe.

Oatmeal M&M Cookies

3 tablespoons butter (the real stuff, salted) softened

3 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 egg yolk

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup all purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt (since I only use Kosher salt I use a heaped 1/8 teaspoon)

½ cup old fashioned rolled oats (quick oats will work but I prefer the texture of the old fashioned)

1 (3.14 oz) package M&M's- mine was labeled as “sharing size”

Pre-heat your oven to 350°F.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium size bowl cream the butter and the sugars together until light and fluffy using a hand held mixer.

Add the egg yolk and vanilla and mix until well combined.

In a small bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Stir well to combine then add to the butter/sugar mixture. Mix until everything is well combined.

Add the oatmeal and M&Ms and stir just until well combined. This step is best done by hand so you don't break up the candy pieces.

Using a cookie scoop or spoons, scoop the cookie dough onto the parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for around 10 minutes, until the cookies are just browning. 10 minutes is how long my oven takes, yours may vary so you should probably check at 9 minutes and know it might take up to 11 minutes all together to cook in your oven.

Leave on the hot cookie sheet to cool for 5 minutes then move to a cooling rack until completely cooled.

Now sit back with a nice hot cup of your favorite beverage (mine is coffee) and enjoy a couple of those wonderful cookies while they are still warm. 

Rainbow Pasta Veggie Salad

I do love a good salad especially as the weather gets warmer. This one is really yummy and makes 2 generous servings. If you add about a cup of your favorite cooked meat you could eat this as a main dish (especially on the hot days to come this summer)

Like with all salads of this type the veggies I am using are suggestions, feel free to use what you love (or heck just what you have in the fridge) Just try to keep to about the same total amount of veggies.

Dressing:

6 Tablespoons mayo

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

½ Tablespoon sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

dash of pepper

Salad

¾ cup Rainbow pasta

½ cup thinly sliced carrot (about 1 medium carrot)

2 thinly sliced radishes

2 sliced green onions

½ large cucumber cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced

½ Tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Cook the pasta as directed on the package and cool.

Combine all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl.

In a medium bowl combine the cooked pasta, all the veggies and the dressing. Toss to combine well.

Chill in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.

Flaky Sandwich Roll

I actually found this recipe (or at least the one that this was based on) last December. I had decided to do an appetizer buffet for Christmas day and was in search of items to go on it. I ran across a sandwich recipe and the first thing I thought was if I change it like this I would have an excellent sandwich for dinner. So the playing around with the recipe began.

We love this sandwich year round with a bowl of soup in the winter or with a salad now that the weather is getting warmer.

One of my favorite things about this sandwich is that it looks like it took a long time to make. But because we are using pre-made pie crust from the grocery store it goes together in just minutes.

One of the things I have played around on with this sandwich is different combinations of fillings. You really can use just about any deli meat and cheese combination you like. I picked out 3 of our favorites for this blog post but the variations are endless.

Following with the pictures of the sandwiches I will give you the exact fillings I used. At the end of the blog the recipe with the amounts can be found. The only real way you can mess this up is to use too much of whatever condiment you choose, this will cause the sandwich to get very watery and the bottom crust will be soft.

The first sandwich is the good old ham and Swiss. This is a classic combo and how can you go wrong with it? For the condiment on this one I stick to the classic roots and use Dijon mustard.

Next up is one of my favorite combos sliced turkey with provolone cheese and lingonberry jam. Do be really careful with the amount of jam in this one. I usually try to just barely put some under the meat then a bit more between the meat and cheese.

And lastly sliced roast beef, sharp cheddar with a creamy horseradish sauce. Yum!!  I have to say after eating all three varieties of the sandwich this week this one was our favorite. 

Each sandwich roll serves 2 so if you are feeding more people just make more rolls. If you are alone it can be re-heated the next day for lunch. And since I knew that I wanted to make all three variations of the sandwiches this week I made 2 for dinner one night so we could play around with re-heating them the next day. We found the two ways that worked the best for us were: (1^st) heating the leftover sandwich pieces in the toaster oven (this is my favorite way to re-heat leftover pizza too) and (2^nd) to partially re-heat in the microwave then finish re-heating in a hot skillet (this crisps the bottom back up) I think that although you could obviously get these hot again in the microwave the crust would end up soggy not nice and crisp.

Now for the recipe:

For each sandwich:

1 refrigerated pie crust

1 teaspoon of the condiment of your choice (mustard, jam, horseradish sauce, etc)

½ pound of deli sliced meat

1 slice (1 oz) of cheese

Heat oven to 425°.

Allow pie crust to warm up as directed on the package.

Lay pie crust out on work surface and spread the condiment of your choice (see my suggestions in the blog post) to within ½” of the edge.

Layer the meat on next keeping it in a row about 4” wide and leaving about an 1” at each end.

Top the meat with the sliced cheese.

Bring up the sides of the crust over the filling meeting in the middle. Pinch the top together you can leave this seam very plain or flute the seam to make it pretty for display.

Roll the ends of the crust making sure to seal the sandwich roll so you don't loose your filling on the baking sheet.

Move the sandwich roll to a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Cut 3 or 4 slits in the top to allow steam to escape.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.

Allow to cool about 5 minutes.

Cut into 4 slices and serve.

Serves 2

My Current Favorite Dessert

Okay, I have to admit I am still of the opinion that there needs to be something sweet at the end of dinner. I can't help it but life is sweeter with dessert.

This recipe is currently my very favorite. And for a multitude of reasons. For one thing it can be made with things that are always in my kitchen. Secondly it is so easy I can practically make it in my sleep and in in under about 3 minutes. And the main reason it just tastes fantastic!

So yeah, this isn't really Tiramisu, it is close but not exactly. It however tastes just as good and is much easier to make.

I have no idea where I got this recipe in the first place. I recently found a scrap of paper in one of my cookbooks. I had torn this recipe out of a magazine at some point to try and then stuffed it between the pages of a cookbook as a bookmark. I had then forgotten about it. When I found it recently I decided to play around with it. I changed a couple of things from that original recipe both in the way I make it and in the ingredients list. I love how my version tastes and that is what I am sharing here.

The ingredients list is for one dish of dessert and you can scale this one up to make as many as you want. I usually make mine while I am cooking dinner and then put it in the fridge for an hour or so. Then it is ready for me when I am ready for it. If you want to make more than one dish just set out the dishes on the counter and work assembly line style. I tried making two at one time but found it was difficult to evenly divide the ingredients between the dishes. Because we are working with small quantities if you are off a bit (especially on the ratio of cookie crumbs to liquid) it is going to affect the finished dessert. So how I do it is I put the 5 cookies in the bag smash them and put them in the first dish. Then I repeat however many times I need to. Then I mix the liquid for the first dish and add it, then repeat on down the line. It really is easier to do it this way.

Super Easy (almost) Tiramisu

5 Vanilla Wafers

1 Tablespoon hot water

½ teaspoon instant Espresso powder

½ Tablespoon (1 ½ teaspoons) coffee liqueur

1 snack sized (about 3 ½ oz.) ready to serve vanilla pudding

whipped cream (to garnish)

a dash of baking cocoa powder

Place the vanilla wafers inside a zip lock sandwich bag, seal and smash them to a fine crumb. Layer these crumbs in the bottom of your dessert dish.

Combine the hot water and Espresso powder until the powder dissolves add the liqueur. Pour this mixture evenly over the crumbs.

Top with the pudding and spread evenly.

At this point you can cover the dish and store it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

When you are ready to serve top with whipped cream and sprinkle with cocoa powder.

Now wasn't that one of the easiest desserts you have ever made? And it looks fancy and like you spent hours creating it. Don't tell anyone how easy it was, just let them think you worked for hours.